As many of you know, I’m a big fan of our local Delmarva Shorebirds minor league baseball team. On their most recent homestand their PlayBall magazine has a photospread of the four Maryland natives who have most recently been on the Shorebirds’ roster: outfielders Glynn Davis and Austin Knight, and infielders Tommy Winegardner and Joe Velleggia.
Due to various roster moves, though, only Davis has spent the entire 2012 campaign with the Shorebirds and as it turns out there’s only been a period of a few days where all were on the roster simultaneously – and that was only because Knight is currently on the disabled list. As I write this, Davis is the only active Shorebird of the four, with Knight still on the DL. Winegardner was sent down to Aberdeen today; ironically it appears he’s replacing Velleggia on the IronBirds roster as Joe decided to voluntarily retire from pro baseball today. Hopefully this is not a PlayBall cover jinx at work.
But this tidbit got me curious about how many Maryland natives had actually played for the Shorebirds over the years. After about an hour on the baseball-reference.com website it appears the answer is 20:
- Derek Brown (1997-98)
- Joey Hammond (1998-99)
- Corey Hoch (1998-99)
- Billy Whitecotton (2000)
- Mark Gibbs (2002)
- Ryan Childs (2004)
- Brandon Erbe (2006)
- Chorye Spoone (2006)
- Paul Winterling (2006-07)
- Andy Schindling (2008-09)
- Brian Valichka (2008)
- Brian Conley (2009-11)
- Patrick Kantakevich (2009-10)
- Steve Bumbry (2010-11)
- Jason Stifler (2010)
- David Walters (2010-11)
- Glynn Davis (2012)
- Austin Knight (2012)
- Joe Velleggia (2012)
- Tommy Winegardner (2012)
Yet while the four this year have not been on the roster at exactly the same time, there was about a ten-day period in July, 2010 where all five Marylanders who played for the Shorebirds that season were all on the roster simultaneously.
It’s interesting to note that the Orioles seem to be placing more of an emphasis on giving homegrown talent the opportunity to play in the organization. The last season no Maryland native played here was 2005, and over the last four we have had no less than three take the field with the team at some point. By and large these players haven’t been high draft picks (exceptions were Erbe and Spoone, who were drafted in the 3rd and 8th rounds, respectively) – in fact, several over the last few seasons have been non-drafted free agents signed off the street by the O’s, including Davis, Winegardner, and David Walters and Jason Stifler from 2011.
While the odds of them making the Orioles’ roster someday are relatively long, and, as the story states, the last Maryland-born player to play for the Orioles was Cal Ripken, Jr. – that is, until Steve Johnson makes his delayed major league debut – it’s neat to see these guys make their bid for getting to the Show with their hometown team. It really doesn’t happen that often to begin with, and Maryland isn’t known as a baseball hotbed like Florida, Texas, and California are. There, it’s less of a big deal to see a hometown or regional guy make the team but in Baltimore that would be special.
